The A Experiment
by Kangaroopaws
Summary: When Shield brings in six children, who all (except one) happened to be the forgotten children of the avengers, what will the team do? Will they be able to step up to the plate and raise children who were taught not to be children? I'm bad at descriptions but please read! (Kids of the Avengers, Steve x Natasha, Tony x Pepper, Thor x Jane,rated T for swearing and mentions of abuse)
1. Chapter 1

**Hi! I know, I know, I should be working on my other story. But I'm kinda in a writer's block with that right now and this just came to me. I kept trying to focus on the other one and get this out of my head but it wouldn't go, so naturally I had to turn it into a story XD. The other stories chapter should be up within a week. But anyway, this is my new story, it does have pairings. (Steve x Natasha, Tony x Pepper, Thor x Jane) and maybe a few more later. But anyway please review and let me know what you think!**

* * *

It was a normal day in Avengers tower. Everyone was on his or her own floor, training, doing research, and in Thor's case, eating "Tarts of Pop". Anyway, it was a normal day, until Clint, Steve and Tony got called into Shield for the mission that would change all of their lives forever.

* * *

"We need you to go to an undisclosed location in Northern Russia to retrieve something for us." Fury said to the three men who sat across from him.

"What are we retrieving?" Hawkeye asked.

"We need six... weapons categorized as A-112 through A-118."

"Why does Shield need more weapons? I thought you guys were done with that whole world destruction thing after Capsicle and Romanoff shut you down." Tony asked.

"These are not normal weapons Mr. Stark. I can't say anything else, but I can assure you Shield has no intentions of using them for harm. We are no longer Hydra."

Finally Steve spoke up. "And how are we supposed to know what we're looking for, if you can't tell us what they are?"

"You'll know when you see them, Agent Rogers."

* * *

It was a simple mission. A plane would drop them onto the roof of the facility, they would go in, take down any guards or agents, get the weapons, and go back to the plane. After that Shield would send in a few agents to capture anyone who could threaten shield in the future.

They were already in the building and were making their way though it. Captain America and Hawkeye had the bottom floor, and Iron Man had the top level.

"Let's spilt up, you go left and I'll go right." Hawkeye said. A few minutes (and a few guards) later. He was walking down an empty hallway, suddenly he heard a noise from behind him. He turned around and drew back his bow, only to see a small girl, maybe seven years old. She had blonde curly hair and bright blue eyes. She was wearing a black t-shirt, black combat boots and camo army pants. What was a kid doing here?

"Вы можете мне помочь?" (Can you help me?) The little girl said. He only understood because he had picked up a little Russian during training and missions (he only learned curses from Natasha). "Пожалуйста, сэр, моя сестра не пострадал." (Please sir, my sister is hurt.) Clint nodded and followed her as she ran down the hallway. At the end of the hall there was a small storage room, in the center sat a little girl. She was no older than five and was wearing the same outfit as the other girl. She had wavy red hair that went down to her shoulders and green eyes. The blonde girl ran over to her side and Clint followed behind her after sending a message to Steve and Tony, telling them to come find him. He walked over to the girl, who was holding her wrist and crying, and bent down next to her.

Click.

He felt the barrel of the gun being pressed against the back of his neck. The red headed girl immediately stopped crying and smirked, before running over next to the other girl.

"Arms up, turn around slowly." A voice with a thick Russian accent said from behind him. He did as he was told, putting his arms up and turning around, but making sure his bow was still strapped to his back. When he turned around he was a boy who looked about 13 holding the gun. He was also wearing the black shirt, camo army pants, and combat boots. The only difference was that he had a belt that was holding multiple guns and knives. The boy had black curly hair and brown eyes, and long narrow scar ran over his left eye and down his cheek.

"Stand against the wall. Don't move or I will kill you." The boy hissed. Clint did as he was told. A few seconds later Steve came running down the hall. The blonde girl immediately pulled out a gun and pointed it at him. Steve reached for his shield.

"If you take out that shield. I'll kill him." The boy gestured to Clint, who was still backed up against the wall. "Go stand by the wall, arms up." Steve did as he was told, giving Clint a nod. They had a plan for this type of situation. As both of the guns followed Steve, Clint reached behind his back to pull out his bow. As soon as his hand touched it, he felt an arrow fly between his fingers and hit the limb of the bow. Not hard enough to break it, but enough to knock it out of his hands. He turned the direction the arrow had came from to see a boy, probably about ten, standing on the other end of the hall with a bow in his hands. He walked closer, still keeping the bow upright. Clint knew there was no way that kid had shot that well, it was probably just luck. As he walked closer they saw that he was also wearing the black outfit. He had messy brown hair. Everything about him made him look like a normal boy (except for the fact that just almost killed one of the worlds best superheroes), but he had one green eye, and one blue-ish green one.

By now both Steve and Clint were backed up against the wall, and Clint was unarmed.

"C'mon Stark." Clint muttered. Seriously, where was he?

"Why are you here?" The boy with the bow asked. All of the kids had some type of weapon pointed at them by now. The oldest boy had tossed the red headed girl a knife, which she happily caught without cutting herself.

"We've been sent by Shield to recover some weapons." Steve answered. "Why are you here, you're just kids?"

"These weapons you been told to recover, do you know what they look like?" The oldest boy asked.

"We haven't been told what they look like, no."

At this the blonde girl sighed and the boy with the bow rolled his eyes and lowered the bow, so did the boy with the gun.

"So... Let me guess. You've been sent here by Shield to recover six weapons, categorized as A-112 through A-118. You haven't been told what they look like and you had no idea where they were in this building. You were just told to look for them. Correct?"

Clint and Steve looked at each other.

"Yes." Steve answered.

The boy smirked. "Well congrats Cap, you found them."


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi! Here's the next chapter. Thanks for all the great feedback! Hope you guys had a good Memorial Day!**

* * *

They both looked confused. The boy sighed.

"Oh stop looking so vague. Seriously." He pulled up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo that said A-112. The other kids did the same, the red haired girl was A-117, the blonde A-116 and the boy with the bow was A-113. "Anyway, we're your weapons, and we aren't going anywhere until you tell us why you want us."

When neither of them answered (because they didn't really know) the boy held up his gun again and shot into the ceiling. They all heard the bullet bounce off of the iron man suit.

"Tell your friend to stay up their until I say otherwise." He pointed the gun back at Hawkeye and Captain America.

Clint took a deep breath. "Okay, we're from shield and we're part of the Avengers and we've only been told to retrieve the weapons, which I guess is you guys. They told us you wouldn't be used for anything bad. And now that we know you're kids I can guarantee nothing bad will happen to you if you come with us."

Most of the kids didn't look convinced. But at the word Avengers the oldest looked mildly interested.

"You said you were part of the Avengers, does that mean there is more of you?" He asked.

Steve nodded. "Not here with us but yes, there is more."

"Names? Real ones."

"Uhh, I'm Steve Rogers, this is Clint Barton, the guy you shot is Tony Stark, the ones that aren't here are Bruce Banner, Thor, and Natasha Romanoff."

The boy took a sharp breath in before quickly glancing at the red haired girl. "And you promise nothing will happen to us if we go with you?"

"Promise."

The boy turned to the other kids. "We're going with them."

Clint realized that he was now switching languages with every word, he had learned the same technique during his training for Shield, so he could understand them.

"No way. We can't leave." The boy with the bow, A-113, argued.

"Archer, it's our only chance to get out of here." Gun boy (as Clint had started mentally calling him) said.

This time the blonde girl spoke up. "But Atticus, what if they hurt us or kill us or-"

"They won't do anything, Aurora."

"How do you know?" The red haired girl asked quietly before casting a worried glance at the men.

"We will be fine Ana, I promise."

The boy with the bow, or Archer, wasn't convinced. "But-"

"That is an order A-113!" Atticus (at least that's what Clint though the girl called him) said. "We'll go down to the lab, get Alexei and Aria and then we will leave, no questions asked. Got it?"

"Got it." They all responded together.

Atticus turned around. "We will go with you." He was speaking in English again, "but we have to go to the laboratory and retrieve two of our teammates."

Steve nodded."Okay, I'll just call Tony down here and-"

"No he has to stay up there, he's distracting them and stopping them from sending more guards down here."

Steve nodded again. He would never admit it out loud, but something about this kid was really... Scary? Unsettling? He didn't really know.

* * *

As soon as the kids had finally accepted that Clint and Steve were their allies, they became less like tiny assassins and more like kids. The oldest boy was right, since Tony was distracting everyone upstairs, they could easily walk around on the bottom floor without any problems.

"Did I break your bow? I didn't mean too." The younger boy asked Clint as they were walking down a hallway.

"Uh no it's not broken, totally fine. But how did you learnt to shoot like that?" He asked the boy.

The boy just shrugged and looked down. Behind them, the oldest boy, Atticus, was talking to Steve, while the girls walked behind them.

"What did you say your name was?" Clint asked.

"I'm Archer," he pointed to the blonde girl, "that's Aurora," he pointed to the red haired girl, "that's Anastasia, there's two other kids, Alexei and Aria, you'll meet them in a few minutes." he pointed to the boy, "and that's Atticus, don't worry, even though he says he'll kill you, he usually won't." He paused. "Just seriously wound. Don't ask him about the scar. I did once when I was little and it wasn't a good idea."

"Ok, I'll remember that. How long have you guys been here, and what are you, prisoners?"

"I've been here for as long as I can remember. Atticus has been here longer than me even. Alexei and Aria's mom practically gave them to the facility, she said they were dangerous when really they're just smart. That's what they call it, the facility, creepy right? Anyway, Aurora got kidnapped from her foster home and sent here. And Ana was in the auctions like I was when I was little."

"The auctions?"

"It's where they sell stuff, mutants, and us. It sounds bad but I don't even remember it so it must not've been that bad." He shrugged. "Can we talk about something else?"

Clint reminded himself to tell a Fury what this kid was saying, because if he was telling the truth, it definitely wasn't legal or okay. Selling kids?

Finally the approached a lab door. Atticus entered a code and the door opened.

There weren't any people inside, and it looked abandoned.

"Damn it." Atticus muttered. "He's gone." He was hoping the scientist could be here and they would arrest him or something, but he must've figured out something was wrong because he wasn't here. Of course he ran away.

"Alexei, Aria?" Aurora called.

"We're back here!" Two voices shouted back. Anastasia ran over and pointed at a storage cupboard. Atticus tried to open the door, but it was jammed. He looked at Steve.

"Can you...?"

Steve nodded and walked over to pull off the door. He did and one boy and one girl ran out of the cupboard. They were both around nine and had brown hair and brown eyes, obviously twins.

"Thank you sir." The boy nodded towards Steve.

The girl quickly looked over everyone in the room. "We're leaving, aren't we?"

Atticus nodded.

* * *

About a half an hour later they were all on the plane. Tony had managed to distract the few remaining guards while the kids climbed up the ladder into the plane. Clint then updated him on what was going on with the kids and the "weapons". Tony and Clint were standing in the back of the plane (Steve was talking to Fury over a radio in the front by the pilot) watching all of the kids, who were standing in the middle.

"Hey Barton." Tony poked him in the arm.

"Yeah?"

"See that little child-thing- whatever you call it, with the red hair?"

"Yeah?"

"You know who she looks like... And you remember what happened about five years ago..."

"I doubt it's her, you're just saying that because of the hair. If we're going by hair color I could say the blonde one looks like Thor."

"Funny part is, she does." Tony looked at him.

"We're just overthinking it."

* * *

Later that night, all of the avengers were sitting in the middle of Avengers Tower, listening to the three men talk about their mission. After they got back they had given the kids to Fury and he promised he would find out how they got into the Facility and then would try to find their parents. Tony almost wanted to mention a few of the kids uncanny resemblance to a few of his teammates, but decided against it, he didn't want to bring back any bad memories.

About five and a half years ago, Natasha had gotten pregnant with Steve's child (they were dating steadily then, and still are). They knew the only option was to out her up for adoption, because of all the recently released information about Natasha, it was too dangerous to keep her. So they put her up for adoption and found a good family. Even though she probably had a good life know, Tony knew they both wished they hadn't given her up.

So Tony kept his mouth shut about the whole thing, because there was no way those kids had anything to do with them.

The next day all of the Avengers got a call from Fury.

"We need all of you to report to Shield headquarter's immediately."

"Why?" Bruce asked, it wasn't often that they all got called in.

"I'm assuming you were told about the children that came in a few days ago? Well we got a tip from the oldest during his interrogation that caused us to run DNA tests on all the children. And, there's no easy way to phrase this but, these kids are yours."

* * *

**So yeah, hope you liked it! Next one should be up in a few days. Please review to let me know what you think, I love critisism! Anyway here's a list of the kids in case you got confused!**

**Atticus- 12, black hair, scar over left eye**

**Archer- 11, brown hair, one green eye one blue eye**

**Alexei- 9- brown hair, twin, smart**

**Aria-9, brown hair, twin, smart**

**Aurora-7, blonde hair, green eyes**

**Anastasia- 5, red hair, doesn't talk much**

**Can you guess the parents of each one? Haha let me know in the reviews! One kids does not have any avengers parents though!**

**Thanks for reading!**


	3. Chapter 3

All of the Avengers stormed into Fury's office.

"What the hell is going on?" Clint yelled.

"To be honest I don't really know myself. It's best to just let you all watch these interrogation videos first." Fury replied. "Oh and Stark, you're the lucky one who didn't end up with a kid, so you can leave if you want."

"Oh no I want to see this." Tony replied as he sat down in front of the screen with the others.

Fury played the first video.

They saw two men drag a handcuffed person behind them into the interrogation room. They set them down in the chair in front of the desk and handcuffed their hands to the side. When they left the room they saw the little red haired girl, sitting in the chair with her knees tucked under her chin. She was obviously trying to get her hands out of the handcuffs. Steve and Natasha both looked at each other, they both knew who it was as soon as they saw her.

A few seconds later Fury walked into the room on the screen.

"Hello." He said to the girl, unsure how to handle kids.

She said nothing back.

"What's your name?"

She only looked at him and spoke softly in with a Russian accent.

"Anastasia."

"Well Anastasia, we're just going to ask you a few questions, ok?"

She only said. "I don't speak English."

Fury frowned, he knew that they all were trained in multiple languages. "Yes you do. Do not try to trick me."

She sighed. "Fine. Just get this over with quickly." All of the Avengers were surprised, just like that the Russian accent disappeared and was replaced with a perfect New York one. Tony thought it was obvious that this was Natasha's daughter, the one they had put up for adoption five years ago.

"Good. Now, tell me what you were doing in the facility." The Fury on the screen said.

"Training."

"For what?"

"Missions."

"Are you spies?"

"That is private information."

"It won't be for much longer."

"I'm not talking."

"It's recommended that you do, or you will be marked as an enemy to Shield and our well trained agents and for lack of a better term, superheroes."

"Good. Heroes don't exist."

The video ended.

"She wouldn't say anything after that, so we moved on to the next one." Fury explained.

He started the next video while they sat in silence.

This time they brought in a girl around seven or eight. She had blonde hair and was staring at the handcuffs intensely. As soon as the guards left the room the handcuffs broke and she took out her hands, smiling.

Fury walked into the room.

"You broke the handcuffs."

"Good job you noticed."

She said sarcastically, still no Russian accent, even though they had lived in Russia.

"Tell me, Aurora, how did you do that?" He walked towards her to examine the handcuffs and she flinched away.

"I'm not going to hurt you." He promised. She still didn't move. "So how did you break steel handcuffs?"

"...I just thought a lot and they broke, I can do that to metal stuff." She shrugged and looked at him. "You're not going to lock us up again, are you?"

"No, of course not. We just want to find your families and you back where you belong."

"You'd have to talk to Atticus then, not me."

The video stopped.

"After that they all told me to talk to Atticus, who is the oldest one, so we did." Fury said, starting the last video.

The guards brought in a boy about 12. He had a long scar over his left eye and (in Tony's opinion) looked like he could probably kill anyone who touched him. Before the guards left the room they asked him for weapons. He reluctantly pulled out three guns, seven knives, and one poisonous dart.

He sat down into the chair and let themi handcuff him.

"Hello." Fury came in.

"Hello." The boy said in the same tone.

"I've been told if I want any information at all, I need to talk to you, so talk."

The boy leaned back in the chair. "If you want information, first you should know, or you probably already do know, as a team we have over 100 confirmed kills. That's enough to send anyone, no matter what age, to jail for a long time. I'm going to make a deal with you. I'll tell you everything you need to know, if you guarantee our protection."

Fury nodded. "Deal."

"And take of these damn handcuffs geez dude are you seriously that afraid of us?"

Fury walked over and slowly took of the handcuffs, making sure he was still holding his gun. "Shield is not afraid of children Mr...?"

"Atticus. And you should be." He said as he put his feet on the table. Fury looked at him.

"Does this bother you?" The boy gestured to his feet.

"Slightly."

"Too bad." Atticus said. "So, what do you want to know?"

"Everything."

Atticus raised an eyebrow, "Everything? That's a vague don't you think?"

Fury didn't reply.

"Ok fine. First off you should know that almost everyone of your little "superheroes" has got a kid out there. Not so super after all. Anyway, all of those kids, that's my team. But more on that later."

"Does that include you?" Fury was pretty sure this kid was lying.

The boy chuckled "Me? No way. My mothers a prostitute, dead now, and my fathers a dead drunk, nothing special. They found me on the street when I was probably three, and took me in. I'm what you would call the control in their experiment, The A experiment."

Fury gave him a questioning look.

"They tried to find children of superheroes. Train them up to eventually kill their parents. They were just developing this idea when I got in. Since they had no other use for me they ran tests on me too. Every time they ran a test or injected something into one of the others they did to me to, just to see how it reacted in normal blood. Anyway, first few years it was just me, so they trained me and stuff, like a replacement in case they couldn't find a kid or they lost one. A few years after they found me they brought in this kid, probably like two maybe. I guess they found him at a foster home in California. He was the supposed son of your archery dude, Eagle eye or whatever. They did some tests and yeah, it was him. So they gave him to me and as soon as he could run we started training. He was really good with the shooting stuff part. He has two different colored eyes from an experiment they did on him to try and make him see in the dark or something, didn't work. He doesn't like to talk about it, just in case you're wondering. I'm assuming you're going to show this to the parents right? So I should probably give a few tips." He looked back, trying to think. "Ummm, don't talk about the eye thing unless he mentions it, he likes to climb on stuff and we call him Archer. He's ten. So, after him, probably like three years later I don't really know, they brought in these two kids, twins, they were probably about four-ish. They're super smart and stuff. They were brought in because their mom basically gave them up to the facility, though I'm sure the two million dollars was a nice bonus. Anyway, she said they were dangerous, mutant alien things. I can say first hand they are not dangerous aliens. She probably just thought that because their dad is the hulk dude I guess. Anyway, if you're watching this, which you probably are, no, they don't turn into little green monsters. So, that's Alexei and Aria. They're like nine-ish now. Next is Aurora, she came like a year after Alexei and Aria, from a foster home in England. She's Thor and his scientist girlfriends kid apparently. Since she's like 1/4 god she can bend metal just by thinking about it. Pretty cool. They did a lot of tests on her, so she's pretty jumping. She's seven now. And last is Anastasia, everyone calls her Ana. She was the youngest when they took her to the facility. Her adopted parents died in a car crash, and they somehow managed to get through and convince the court on of their agents was her next legal guardian. Her parents are Captain America and The Black Widow. I'm guessing she was probably 1 1/2 when she came. She doesn't talk much and is really, really, good at lying, so if her parents are listening, watch out. Anyway, that's all of us. There isn't a A-118 by the way, they thought there would be but there isn't. I guess one of them never had a kid. So, that's it, I don't know what else you want to know, that's basically everything." He looked up at Fury.

"And you're completely sure that the parents are the Avengers?" Fury asked.

He nodded, "That's what they told me, you can test it if you want."

Fury nodded. "And after we reunite the kids with their parents, where do you expect us to put you?"

Atticus shrugged. "I don't, just let me go I guess. You said if I told you everything you wouldn't send us back to Russia."

"Fair enough."

The video ended.

Everyone was silent, even Tony, who was wondering how the heck Bruce had kids and he didn't. It seemed way more likely for him to end up in this situation.

Finally Fury spoke up, "We did test on all of them and the boy was correct. So agents, ready to meet your children?"


	4. Chapter 4

No. He was not ready tom wet his children.

Bruce Banner was not the type of person to have a serious relationship, but just one time he did. And look what happened, they broke up, and she must've just forgotten to mention that she was pregnant. Of course she would be eager to get rid of them, without even asking him. He had no idea why he dated her anyway. But that was besides the point. He couldn't take care of kids, he was the hulk! One day he'd get mad and then, no more kids. He couldn't do this, he just c-.

"Calm down, Bruce." He said to himself. He ran a hand through his hair and started pacing back and forth, watching the others.

Hawkeye was swearing under his breath, Thor was standing in the corner, calling Jane. And Steve and Natasha were whispering to each other.

Suddenly the doors opened and a row of children came in, accompanied by guards. The guards snapped of the handcuffs and the kids looked around, trying to find the person they were told to go to.

Bruce stood there, shaking, they were going to hate him. He can't even take care of a dog, much less a little kid who needed constant care and attention and wouldn't understand why he turned into a monster or-

"Hello. You must be Doctor Banner." The boy and the girl in front of him both stuck out their hands in unison. They had brown hair and brown eyes, obviously twins. He tried to remember their names.

"Uhh, yeah. You must be Alexei and Aria?" He awkwardly shook their hands.

The girl nodded. "Correct. So from what I understand you were involved in a gamma radiation leak that causes a mutation in you cells when your anger level reaches a certain point?"

He was shocked, but he nodded.

The boy smiled, "Cool!"

* * *

"Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck." Clint swore under his breath. He should've known the second he saw the kid. No ten year old can shoot that well, even if it was an accident, he saw the way he held the bow. Like a professional. If that wasn't enough, the boy looked like Bobbi way to much for it to just be random. Bobbi, he hadn't talked to her for years, not after she left Shield. And she obviously forgot to tell him something.

At that moment the doors opened and the kids walked in. All the others slowly walked towards their parents, but not as slow as Archer. When he finally got over to Clint he just glared at him.

"Hi, again." Archer muttered.

"Hi." Clint said. He really didn't know what else to say.

"So I guess you're the jerk that left mom and I, huh?" He asked.

Clint still wasn't sure exactly what was going on, he didn't even know he had a kid until ten minutes ago. He assumed something must've happened to make her give Archer up, he knew she would never just leave him.

"Listen, I didn't even know about this until a little whole ago so-" Clint started.

"Whatever." Archer picked up his bow and started to all away. He turned to Clint. "You coming?"

Clint nodded and followed him out to the car, but not before he whispered one more thing.

"Shit."

* * *

Thor was confused. He had called Jane and she had told him what happened. She found out she was pregnant after he left for Asgard the first time. She didn't think there was anyway to contact him, so she decided to have and raise the baby on her own. At the hospital she was immediately taken away and Jane was told she had died. She was devastated and never wanted to look at the body, which she should've. If she had asked to see the baby she would've found out that their wasn't a body. Finally Thor and Jane came to the conclusion that someone must've taken Aurora. After Thor told her what was going on, Jane booked a flight and would be there in four hours. Until then Thor had no idea what to do. He could handle Asgadian kids, but he was lot with Midgaurdian ones.

After finishing his call with Jane he looked down to see a seven year old girl standing about eight feet in front of him.

"Are you my dad?" She asked cautiously.

He smiled, she was a perfect combination of him and Jane. If he ever had to imagine his child, this is what she would look like. "Yes I am."

"You're sure?" She asked again and moved a little closer.

He nodded and held out his hand.

She cast a worried glance back at Atticus, who was standing by the wall. He gave her a thumbs up and a salute.

She smiled and saluted back before grabbing Thor's hand.

* * *

"Steve, I can't do this. We have to many enemies. That's why we gave her up in the first place. If people killed the family just to get the her, what else are they willing to do?" Natasha looked up at him.

If he was being completely honest, Steve had no idea what to do either. He never expected to be in this situation but he was... Excited. It was hard giving her up for adoption and he always wondered if it was the right choice, now they were getting a second chance.

"I know Nat. But it's either us or back to Russia, you heard Fury. And I can you can be a better mom than anyone at that facility ever was to her. Besides, she's going to live in a tower full of superheroes, no one will hurt her."

Natasha thought for a minute then nodded. As she saw the little girl walking towards them she grabbed Steve's hand.

The girl looked up at them.

"Hello." Steve said, smiling.

"Hi." She said quietly.

Natasha bent down so she was at the little girl's height.

"I'm Natasha and this is Steve." She said gently (which is hard for her).

"Anastasia." The girl said. "And you're my parents?"

Natasha nodded.

"You're not going to send me back to Russia?" She asked nervously.

Natasha and Steve nodded again. Anastasia threw her arms around Natasha's neck.

"Thank you."

* * *

Atticus stood in the back of the room next to Tony. Both were watching the scenes play out in front of them.

Atticus looked at the bracelet on Tony's wrist.

"Does that call the suit?" He asked.

Tony looked around to see who was talking, then looked at the bracelet. "Oh. Yeah it does."

Atticus nodded, "Cool. Why are you here anyway?"

They were silent for a minute before Tony spoke.

"Watching, it should be hilarious to watch these guys with kids." He laughed lightly.

Atticus smirked. "Yeah but kids make messed and touch stuff. Plus Aria's a huge kleptomaniac."

Tony shrugged. "Not my problem."

"Yeah but they're living in your tower. With all your expensive robot crap."

"Shit." Tony muttered.

A few minutes later Atticus started walking towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Tony asked.

Atticus shrugged with a small smirk. "Anywhere."


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey guys, sorry about the wait! This chapter definitely isn't my favorite, but I needed to get through it, so sorry about that. Anyway, I'm so happy with the response this story has gotten! Thank you much! Next chapter I will try to respond to a few reviews. Anyway, even though it's not my favorite, I hope you enjoy! Remember to review, I love criticism! Thanks!**

* * *

At 4:30 am, all five of the avengers kids woke up and left their guest bedrooms. They quietly snuck down to the meeting room on the second floor, as they had planned to the night before. Anastasia (who was on Steve's floor, the tenth floor) was the last to get there. When she walked in Aurora was sitting in a chair, talking to Aria, Alexei was messing with the security cameras, and Archer was sitting in the corner, sulking. When they heard the door close, everyone turned.

"Ana, you're here, good." Alexei said, relieved. "Aria, do you have our stuff?"

Aria nodded and opened a bag to reveal all of their weapons that she had managed to steal back from SHEILD.

Everyone quickly ran up and took theirs, leaving Atticus's in the bag. Archer went back to the corner and pulled out a knife to sharpen his arrows.

Alexei sighed, "Archer, we are having a meeting, stop sulking and get over here."

Archer dropped his arrows and walked over to the table. Technically he should've been the leader, as he was the next oldest after Atticus. But Alexei saw his chance and took it, and Archer wasn't in the mood to argue.

"So..."Alexei said.

"I have eighteen cameras, and twenty possible escapes on my floor." Ana stated, she knew the drill. It was their first instinct to look for cameras and exits anywhere they went.

"We have twelve cameras and eighty exits." Aria said.

Archer was next, "Uhh, sixteen and nine."

Alexei nodded, "So not heavily guarded, I've already disabled the cameras in here without disturbing the AI. It's fairly easy and I expect everyone to do the same on their own floors." He looked around, trying to remember how Atticus did this, "Next, we need to figure out what they want with us. Stark is probably the most vulnerable as he hasn't read our file. They all assume we are innocent children, so we have an advantage there." He paused. "Ana, we need you to get Stark to tell us what they plan to do to us. You know what to do."

Anastasia nodded, this was always her favorite part.

"Tonight," Alexei continued "We should figure out a way for them to let us leave, so we can get to know the area, you know?"

"Yeah," Archer said. "And then later we can figure out how to get out of this hell hole."

Aria glared at him. "We're not planning on leaving."

"Besides, it's not that bad," Aurora said, "In fact, I kind of like them. Both of my parents are really nice."

Archer leaned back in his chair. "Yeah, nice. Nice until they get their heads out of their asses and figure out that we are nothing but a problem. And what's going to happen to us then? We're going to wind up back in Russia, and next time we're not coming out alive."

"Archer!" Alexei hissed.

"What?" Archer shrugged. "It's the truth and you know it, I say we just leave now."

"Listen, just because your a miserable asshole doesn't mean you have to ruin it for everyone else." Aria scolded.

"Whatever." Archer mumbled as he walked out of the room.

Alexei sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"What are we going to do?" Anastasia whined "Atticus always knew what to do."

"I don't know Ana."

* * *

Later that day, a twelve year old assassin showed up on the front steps of Avengers Tower. He had spent the night on the street and had already managed to get into a fight. He could feel the blood drying on his face and he people staring at him, but he didn't mind.

He opened the door and walked into the reception area. No one was there so he went over to the elevator.

Locked.

"Damn it." Atticus muttered.

He hit the door a few more times before he saw a panel on the wall.

Atticus smiled. "Perfect."

Atticus walked over. As soon as he got near it, a voice came out of the sky.

"How may I help you sir? Do you have an appointment with Mr. Stark?"

Atticus automatically recognized that it was an AI.

"Nope, I don't." He said.

"Would you like to make an-"

"Atticus ripped off the panel.

"Sir, I highly advise you not to touch that."

Atticus grabbed some wires. "Sorry bro."

"If you continue to do this I can and will call Mr. Stark." JARVIS warned.

Atticus pulled out an army knife and cut some wires, the light flickered. "Not anymore dude. What do they call you anyway?"

"I am JARVIS, but that's besides the point. If you even disable one system-"

"Sorry JARVIS, but we're already past that. Keep up next time." Atticus pulled out a few more wires and typed in a code on the keypad. JARVIS turned off and the elevator opened.

* * *

Atticus stopped on the first floor. He pressed the button again but the elevator wouldn't go up. The doors opened and he saw a blonde woman standing on the other side.

"Shit." He cursed himself for forgetting to disable the backup alert system.

He slowly reached over to the edge of the elevator and presses the door close button, while still maintaining eye contact with the woman.

The doors started to close and she wordlessly reached out to stop the door.

Atticus stood in the elevator. "Hi."

The woman raised an eyebrow.

"Uhh, are you gonna let me go or...?"

"No." She said.

"Ok..." He shifted his feet awkwardly. "Uh I'm just here to see my team, I didn't want to break the thing. It just kinda...happened."

She nodded. "You must be Atticus."

"Yep."

She stuck out her hand, "I'm Pepper."

He nodded. "So do you want me to fix the AI. 'Cause I can if you want me too."

Pepper shook her head. "Nah, Tony can get it when he gets home. What happened to your face?"

Atticus touched the cuts on his face. "Just a scratch, got into a fight with some crazy drugged up dude. No big deal."

"Here, let me see." Pepper walked closer and looked at the scratch. Atticus flinched back and instinctively put his hand on his gun.

Pepper pulled her hand back "It's ok, I'm not going to hurt you."

"Yeah I know, sorry-it's just...yeah."

"Want some ice? You're friends should be back in a few hours, they wanted to go grocery shopping or something, Tony went with. You can wait here if you want." Pepper said as she walked towards the kitchen.

He shrugged and followed her.

* * *

Two hours later Tony came home to see Atticus sitting on his couch with an ice pack on his face and a soda in his hand, watching tv. Pepper was at her desk working on something. They both looked up when Tony walked in.

"Hey." Atticus said before turning back to the show (a soccer game).

Tony looked at Pepper and pointed at Atticus. "What's the Russian kid doing on my couch?"

Pepper smirked and looked back at her computer.

"Hispanic. Not Russian. Just because I lived there doesn't mean I'm Russian. And calm down dude, I'm just waiting for my team."

Tony looked at Pepper again, who ignored him. "You let him in?"

Atticus got up and grabbed another soda. "Nope, I hacked your AI. You need a better password. JARVIS 5 is probably the worst thing."

"But- Pepper, you just let him-?"

She shrugged.

"Well, since everyone's back, I should probably be going. Thanks for letting me sit here Pepper." Atticus said as he walked towards the door.

"Yep, you're welcome here anytime." Pepper replied.

"Cool." Atticus walked past Tony and nodded at him "See ya later."

Atticus walked towards the elevator and left.

Tony turned to Pepper. "Okay, what just happened?"


	6. Chapter 6

**Hey guys! New chapter! Hopefully this one should make up for the last one that I was obviously asleep when I was writing. I'll re write it eventually, don't worry :) anyway I'm just going to apologize ahead of time for something because originally this story was just Atticus (who was going to be fifteen) and Ana (who was going to be 8). And Atticus was going to be Tonys kid but then some other ideas came to me and now there is more kids, but because it was originally just those too, the story might be more centered around them. I'll try to make it even, but it might not end up that way. Anyway, enjoy! **

* * *

[This takes place in between the events of the last chapter, so between the kid's meeting and Atticus coming to visit]

Natasha couldn't sleep. This happened often, and usually sleeping in Steve's room helped, but not tonight.

She was completely convinced there was no way she could be a parent. Even though Steve had tried to convince her otherwise, she didn't believe it. 'He would be a good dad." She thought. 'But not me.'

Sure, she had had her doubts about giving Anastasia up for adoption five years ago, but in the end she knew it was for the best. She never expected that anyone would find the girl. They had made sure none of the hospital staff would mention the girls parents. And the adoptive family was in no way associated with SHEILD. It should've been impossible for them to find her. Natasha never thought this would've happened. It was her fault, she should've known better. She should not've let this happened. No child should have to go through what she went through. If only she would've known, then she could've-.

'Could've what?' She thought, 'Not put her up for adoption? Like that would've helped. You can't handle kids, and you definitely couldn't of dealt with a baby. What are you even going to do now? I mean, it's not that I don't like kids, I'm just to dangerous for them. One night she's going to wake up with a nightmare, come in to my room, and I wont know it's her and she'll end up dead. It's too dangerous and-'

"Stop it Nat." She said to herself. "Freaking out isn't going to help."

She got up and left the bedroom, careful not to wake Steve. Natasha often walked around at night, it helped clear her mind, and no one else was ever awake.

* * *

Although she would never admit it, the tower scared Anastasia. In the future she would get over her fears, but for now it was absolutely petrifying, especially when she was walking around it alone at night. First of all, she hated that weird computer program. Alexei had described it as "ingenious" but she found it creepy. It could easily be watching her right now, sending her data to companies waiting to get their hands on her and experiment on her. That had happened to her enough already, and she was terrified that it might happen again. She also hated the height. The whole place was glass, so you could see the ground 20 floors away wherever you went. It didn't seem to bother anyone else though. She figured she just wasn't used to it (after living underground for so long) and the fear would eventually go away. Other than that, the general aura of the place scared her, it wasn't what she was used to. These people (she didn't really want to call them her parents), they weren't like them. They saved people, but she was used to killing. Even though Atticus refused to let her shoot someone, she had still helped and had could name at least fifteen ways to kill someone in less than five minutes just by looking at them. Sure, she was grateful for them for getting her away from the Facility, but she didn't know how to be normal. None of these people knew what it was like to kill people, they just saved people. They never had wait for hours in a room every morning, knowing there was no way out, just to be poked and prodded at for hours. The to be sent off to train or kill after that. They didn't understand what it was like sitting in a cage, watching people bid thousands of dollars on your life. How was she supposed to explain why she woke up screaming at night. It was a normal noise in the Facility, but probably not here. She just wasn't meant to be here, none of them-.

She stopped and listened. There were footsteps ahead of her. She silently pulled out her gun. The footsteps stopped and she heard the sound of another gun. It was completely dark and she couldn't see anything around her, so she stood, hoping she was aiming the right way.

Suddenly the light switch flicked on. That lady, her mom, stood in front of her. Natasha immediately dropped the gun she was holding and put her hands up.

Anastasia kept her gun steady.

"Hey, it's okay, it's okay." Natasha said to Anastasia.

The little girl slowly lowered the gun and put it back in her pocket, while maintaining eye contact with Natasha.

"Sorry." Ana muttered.

"It's fine," Natasha assured her, "What are you doing up?"

Natasha wanted to ask why Anastasia had a gun, but didn't think that would be wise (mainly because well, she had a gun).

"Just walking around." Anastasia lied.

It was a convincing lie, and a normal person wouldn't be able to see through it. But Natasha did.

"You sure about that?" She asked.

Anastasia nodded.

Natasha was going to say something, but she bit her lip. She would let it slid, this time. Besides, she could just check JARVIS's security cameras later anyway.

It was quiet for a minute.

Finally Ana spoke.

"I have a stomach ache." She figured if these people were heroes like they said they were, they should be able to fix something as simple as the stomach ache she had had since they arrived in the US. "Can you fix it?"

Natasha nodded, she wanted to start off on the right foot with Anastasia, "I can try to help."

"Yeah."

Natasha walked toward the kitchen, with Ana following her.

When they got to the kitchen, Ana climbed onto a stool near the counter and Natasha opened the cupboard to look for any stomach medicine. The only thing that was safe for Ana's age was a small pill. She turned to Anastasia.

"Can you take pills?"

Ana nodded solemnly, "We had to a lot."

Natasha got her a glass of water and set it down in front of her. She noticed the look on Ana's face. "Are you sure you're ok?"

She nodded again.

Ana looked at the pill before picking it up. As soon as she put it near her mouth the only thing she could see was her sitting back in the lab, the scientist standing around her. Her hands started to sweat and she dropped the pill. After closing her eyes for a minute, she gingerly picked it up to try again.

"Sweetie," Natasha reached out to stop her. She knew how hard it was for her to do some things after the Red Room, and she didn't want Ana to go through any more of the same thing. "I know something else that will work better."

Anastasia set down the pill and looked up hopefully. "What?"

Natasha thought for a minute. She remembered how Steve had once told her that when he was little his mom would give him a glass of milk and a cookie whenever he had a stomach ache, and it always helped. Even though, it didn't actually do anything, like lat kids he believed it would, so it did.

"Cookies and milk." Natasha said, "Guaranteed to cure any stomach ache." She smiled slightly at the little girl.

Ana stared back quizzically.

Natasha grabbed some cookies and poured a glass of milk. "Try it."

"You promise it will work?" Ana asked.

"Promise."

Anastasia still didn't believe her, but decided it couldn't hurt. She picked up the cookie and looked around for a fork.

"Uhh, where's the fork?"

Natasha frowned. She must not've ever had cookies before. "You don't need a fork, you just eat it."

"With your hands?"

"Yep." Natasha picked up a cookie and took a bite to show her.

Anastasia slowly bit into the cookie. As soon as she did her eyes lit up and she looked at Natasha with surprise.

Natasha chuckled and smirked lightly at the little girl who was now quickly devouring the cookie.

* * *

A few minutes later she was done.

"Feel better now?"

Anastasia nodded, for some reason, it had worked.

"So, ready to go to bed?" Natasha asked.

Ana nodded and they walked back to the bedroom she was staying in.

As soon as Ana was in bed, Natasha went to turn off the light.

Much like the rest of the tower, Ana hated the room. She was used to being with all of the other kids at the Facility, and being alone was weird.

'Maybe she would sit with me for a little while...' Ana thought. 'No don't be dumb, you're old enough to handle yourself, who cares if it's downright terrifying in-'

"Can you stay here for a little while?"

'Damn it Ana.' She thought again.

Natasha turned around.

"Please?" Ana asked again, she was cursing herself in her head.

Natasha nodded and walked back over to the bed. She say down next to Ana.

Ana quickly curled up next to her and closed her eyes.

'What are you even doing Ana?' She asked herself. 'Just go with it, ok?'

"Thanks." Ana (who was extremely tired) told Natasha. Within minutes she was asleep.

Natasha finally had time to really look at the little girl. She had bright red hair, just like Natasha. When Natasha was younger, she had decided that if she ever had kids (she didn't think she would) that she would want them to have her hair. She remembered when Ana was a baby, she had only a small tuft of light blonde hair, lighter than Steve's even. Over the years she had wondered if her hair color had ever changed, because the last time she saw her was in the hospital. But other than her hair, she looked like Steve. She had his eye color and the same face shape. Natasha couldn't help but wonder if the serum had any affect on her, because she was very small and skinny for her age, but part of that might've been from where she was living. Overall, Natasha could easily say that she thought Anastasia was perfect.

She smiled.

When she was younger, she was convinced that she could never love anyone and no one would ever love her. Clint had proven her wrong first, becoming almost like her older brother. Second was Steve, somehow managing to break her walls and to help prove her wrong again. And finally, Ana. From the moment she was born, Natasha knew she loved her. Even though she had tried and tried to forget about her over the years.

While Natasha was lost in her thoughts, Steve opened the door.

She looked up, "Hey."

"Hey" he whispered, casting a glance at Ana.

"What are you doing up?" Natasha asked.

"Just came to look for you." He replied.

Natasha slowly moved and got up. She pulled the blankets up around Anastasia, who didn't even stir.

She walked over to Steve, who was standing by the door. He put out his arms and she reached around his waist to hug him. They both stood there and looked at the sleeping figure in the bed.

"Steve?" Natasha muttered.

"Hmm?" He replied.

She smiled. "We're going to be just fine, aren't we?"

"Yeah."


	7. Chapter 7

**Hey guys, I just want to thank you for the AMAZING response I've gotten on this story, and thank you for all the great reviews, I love hearing from you! Anyway, just thanks so much! This chapter should hopefully answer all the questions you have, let me know if you have more. This is the longest I've ever written, over 4,000 characters! After this there will be a few chapters of parent and child interaction, and then we will get into the main plot. Thanks for reading, enjoy!**

**I don't own Marvel or the Avengers, I only own the characters you do not recognize.**

* * *

When Atticus went to visit, he knew it was best to visit all of his "teammates" (he had never called them anything different, and didn't ever plan on it, even though they were basically family) separately. If they were all together he would never be able to get anything real out of them. Together they worked like machines, and machines didn't show emotions. Right now Atticus needed to know their emotions (he knew they were probably contemplating running away), and he couldn't get that when they were together.

First he decided to visit Aurora. It was most logical since she was on the closest floor. Plus she was probably the easiest to talk to.

He got out of the elevator and looked around, no one was there.

After a few seconds a woman came running out of the kitchen. Atticus assumed this was the scientist, Aurora's mom.

He put on his signature fake smile.

"Hi! I'm Atticus, I'm here to see Aurora?" He stuck out his hand and put another painfully forced smile on his face. Threatening people was his forte, maintaining normal conversation, not so much. Even if he could get to the normal conversation level, everything he usually said was sarcasm. He really couldn't help it but he had been punished for his "disrespectful tongue" multiple times at the facility (he had the scars to show for it too).

The woman stuck out her hand, "Oh hi, I'm Jane. Aurora is her room I think..." She smiled at him again.

"Ok great. Sounds like she's adjusting well." He knew it would be easiest for Aurora to settle into her knew like. She was the only one of them who had actually been wanted, after all (well, besides Archer, kind of. But that was a story for a different time).

"Mmhmm, I spent all those years thinking that she was..." She frowned a little. "But now we're finally getting a second chance."

Atticus nodded and tried to think of a good response. "Yeah, it's great that they got to get out of that place and have a slightly normal life."

She nodded again.

Atticus decided this was getting to annoyingly pleasant.

"But I'm going to be honest with you here. This isn't gonna be all sweet and fun as you think. We've been through hell, and it's going to leave some after effects. I'm mean, they all got beat up and tested on and crap. But it was worse for the girls." He looked down.

"What happened to them?"

Atticus looked up to face her. "Three young girls in a building full of angry men, what do you think happened?"

Jane took a sharp breath in. How could she let this happen? If only she would've asked more question, instead of just sitting there for days, grieving for a child that wasn't even dead.

"Point is," Atticus continued. "You have to be gentle around them, and just don't get too mad if sometimes she randomly pulls out a knife on you or something, it's just instinct, she can't help it."

Jane nodded, fully understanding what he was saying now, and how different it would be to raise her. One day Aurora would need to talk about what happened. It might not be for months, or years, but her and Thor would need to be there for her. It would also take longer for them to gain her trust, especially for Thor.

"Atticus?" They heard a voice from the hallway say.

He smiled (not fake this time) and turned around. "Rora!"

"You came to visit?"

"Yep." He turned to Jane, "Could you give us a few minutes or are you just gonna stand there?"

"Oh sorry." She walked down the hall.

Atticus walked over to the couch and sat next to Aurora.

"So, how's life?"

"Oh it's so nice here Atticus!" She said enthusiastically. He chuckled. Out of the whole team she was must definitely them most childish. She had been punished for it at the facility, but here it was normal, and he could tell she loved it.

"And guess what? They actually like me! And I wasn't supposed to go to the facility, they actually wanted me. Archer said they didn't."

"Well of course they would want you, who wouldn't?" He asked and she smiled. "Archer's just being a jerk, like always."

"Why is he so sad, shouldn't he be happy too?"

"Nah, it's hard for him, you know that. He's the only one that actually remembers being taken away. They tried to wipe his memory like every week, remember? You were there sometimes."

"Yeah I know, but why is he mad now?"

"You ask to many questions." He teased. "I'm not good with this emotional stuff."

"Yeah but you know the answer. I know you do." She said seriously.

"Fine. I guess he just feels like this guy, his dad, should've been able to help them. But he didn't. I'm guessing he didn't even know about him, but Archer's still mad."

Aurora shrugged. "I don't get why it's such a big deal that he remembers being taken away though. I mean, we see bodies all the time, how was that any different?"

"I don't know Rora, I think it's a bit different if that body was your mom's." He said.

"Oh yeah. I guess we wouldn't know how that family stuff is though."

"Hey, you've got one of those now. Take advantage of it kid." He smiled.

Aurora laughed.

"Well I should probably go talk to everyone else, see ya later." He waved and went back to the elevator.

One down, four to go.

* * *

"So, where's your... parental unit?" Atticus asked as he put he feet on the coffee table.

"Downstairs somewhere with the others." Alexei reached out and tried to slap his feet off the table.

Atticus causally lifted up his feet to dodge the slap. For good reason too, a slap from one of those two could leave a bruise for a month.

"Probably talking about us." Aria muttered. Atticus set his feet on the table and some dirt fell of his shoes. Aria stared at him for a second, and then reached her own foot up and hit his of the table, resulting in a loud crack from Atticus's foot. She smirked.

"Shit Ari!" Atticus set his feet back on the floor. "Good to know nothing's changed since I saw you last."

"It's only been 36 hours." Alexei pointed out.

Atticus shrugged. "Anyway, so, how's life? How's your dad?m"

"Don't say that it sounds too casual." Aria said. "I prefer parental unit."

"Whatever." Atticus rolled his eyes. "Just answer the question."

"Life fine, better than the facility, but still sub-par." Alexei answered.

"Sub-par? Are you serious? You live in a tower full of superheroes, you are literally half super hero, and life's "sub-par."

"Hey, this dude barely qualifies as a super hero. I mean, he messed up an experiment and now turns into a disorganized, brainless, green monster. Plus, he has absolutely no idea what to do with us. He just keeps tiptoeing around like we're gonna explode or something." Alexei said. He wouldn't admit it, but he was kind of disappointed. He had no idea how a family was supposed to function, but he was pretty sure that the dad running off to his little lab (or the "happy place" as Aria had started calling it) every time there was a possibility one of the kids was slightly upset (as they had been the whole almost two days they were here) wasn't how it was supposed to work.

"I almost wish we'd ended up with our mother instead." Aria said bitterly.

"Hey, it can't be that bad guys. It was here or back to Russia. You made your choice now deal with it." It was harsh, but Atticus knew it was the truth.

"True." Alexei replied.

It was silent for a minute before Atticus spoke up.

"Well I better go. I'll come visit again in a few days."

"Where are you staying anyway?" Aria asked.

"I don't know, I'm just kind of wandering around, it's only been a day anyway." He replied.

"Come live here." Alexei said, "He probably wouldn't notice anyway."

Atticus gave a small smile. "See you later guys."

* * *

"Archer?" Atticus shouted into the empty apartment.

"What?" A voice shouted back. Atticus looked around, but didn't see anything.

"Where the hell are you?"

"Uhh, up here."

Atticus looked up and saw that a ceiling panel had been moved away.

"Well come out."

No reply.

Atticus sighed and grabbed a stool from the nearby counter. After standing on the stool, the ceiling was still about two feet above his reach. He jumped off the stool and grabbed onto the inside of the ceiling, hoisting himself up. It was times like these where he was slightly grateful for all of the strength training he had to do. He looked around and spotted Archer sitting in the corner of the air vent, fiddling with the strings on his bow.

"So Archie, whatcha doing?" Atticus said casually.

"Don't call me Archie, Atti." Atticus cringed at the sound of the name he had been called when he was younger. Archer didn't look up. "I'm fixing the strings."

"You got new ones last week, they aren't broken."

"So?"

"So why are you fixing them?"

"They feel broken." He still didn't look up.

Atticus ran his hand through his hair. "Well they aren't so just put it down."

"No." He kept working. "What do you want?"

Atticus reached over and yanked the weapon out of Archer's hands. Finally he looked up. It was clear the boy had been crying earlier, from the red around his eyes.

If Atticus had to pick the two most childish ones out of their group, it would be Aurora and Archer. Aurora because she always tried to act her age, even when she was told no too. Archer because he had the tendency to get angry easily, and to hold in his emotions.

"Stop looking at me dude, it's fucking creepy." Archer said.

Atticus looked away. "So, how's everything here?"

"Perfect." Archer lied.

"Really? Try telling me that when you're not hiding in an air vent."

"It's fine dude, really."

"Sure. So when are you planning your escape?" After being together practically their whole life, Atticus could tell what the others were thinking.

Archer knew he was caught.

"Tuesday." He muttered.

"Why?"

Archer didn't know if he was referring to why he wanted to leave or why he chose that day, so he answered both.

"Because I hate it here. And they were told they had two days to get us settled in before they were back on missions, I heard it through the wall. Today's Sunday, so he should be gone by Tuesday."

"Makes sense. Thought I think Wednesday would be better, that way you can guarantee most of them will be gone."

Archer looked surprised. "You're supposed to tell me it's a bad idea, you know that right?"

Atticus shrugged, fully aware that that was what he was supposed to tell him. But like always, he had a plan. "Your choice, I don't care if you runaway, I know you can handle yourself."

As he was talking, he slowly pulled an army knife from his back pocket and cut the bowstrings behind his back. Not all the way, but so that they would probably snap in a few minutes.

Archer didn't notice. "So you would seriously let me?"

"Yep." Atticus said, as he handed the bow back.

Archer, who was still confused, set the bow down without looking at it, not noticing the strings.

"So, I'm going to go talk to Ana now, if we're all good here..." Atticus questioned.

"Yeah."

"Bye."

Atticus crawled back to the opening and jumped out, landing easily on his feet.

As he did he heard a loud noise from above him.

"What the hell Atticus?"

He smiled as he walked out the door, and Clint walked in. After saying something to him, Atticus left.

* * *

Next was Ana. When he walked into the apartment he saw a woman sitting on the couch. He immediately recognized her as Ana's mother, the black widow.

As soon as he walked in she turned around.

"Hi, uh, where's Anastasia?" He asked nervously. All of the kids were trained to match (and hopefully become better) at the same skills as their parent. He had seen the stuff Ana had been trained in, and assumed he did not want to get on this lady's bad side.

"You're Atticus right?" Natasha asked, Ana had mentioned him, and she remembered the interrogation video.

"Yeah." Atticus said. He hoped she hadn't ran away, or killed someone, or been sent to Shield to be restrained or something. Out of all of them, she was probably most likely to do something like that, even though she was the youngest.

"She's sleeping right now." Natasha explained.

'Oh good' Atticus thought. 'So she hasn't done anything dang-. Wait. It's seven thirty. Something's wrong.'

"Can I go see her?" He asked. She never went to bed early.

"Yeah, go ahead." She gestured down the hall.

As he was walking down the hallway to what he assumed was the guest room Ana was staying in Natasha stopped him.

"Wait." She had been dying to have some of her questions answered, and now was her chance.

He turned around.

"I have some questions."

"About what?" Atticus raised an eyebrow.

"Sit down." She gestured to the chair across from her.

He looked around, seeing if there was anyone else there.

"Steve is with Tony and Bruce working on better security after some cameras "magically" broke last night." She explained.

He nodded (even though he barely remembered which man was which, he thought it was best to act like he understood) and sat down. "So, what do you want to know?" Atticus was eager to go talk to Ana and find out what was going on, even if it meant being a little impatient with a master assassin.

She decided to get the most pressing question over with first. "Have you heard of the Red Room?"

Atticus looked at her. "How do you know about that?" He had never finished reading the files he was given about the parents, and he was starting to think he should've.

"Just answer the question."

"Of course I've heard of it. The guys at the facility practically worshipped that thing." He paused. "You know how after Hitler there was bunch of people trying to copy what he did and stuff, like he inspired them?"

She nodded.

"Well, it's basically the same thing between the Facility and the red room. The only difference is that the Nazi impersonators got shut down by the government, we didn't."

That was exactly what Natasha didn't want to hear, but she went on to the next question.

"So why did they want the children of the Avengers specifically?" She thought she knew the answer already.

"To kill you." Atticus said bluntly. "They had already been trying to train kids for years, but they all had died during the training, it was too much for your average kidnapped Russian orphan. So once they somehow figured out that "hey, all these kids are dying, let's try to get some magic ones!" They started looking for them. They got Archie first, when he was three. They found him and his mom hiding out in some weird middle eastern country, because somehow she knew people would be after him I guess. He was in the auctions for a little while before he got to our facility specifically though. Next they got Alex and Ari, when they were probably like two. Their mom just handed them over. And after them it was Aurora, someone in the hospital she was born in stole her, but once they realized how fucked they were, they just dropped her at some foster care thing in England, so she was pretty easy for them to find. And after her was Ana," He glanced up quickly. "Adoptive parents died in a "car crash" and one agent somehow got custody. She went to the auctions then to the facility."

She gave him a look that said "keep talking."

So he did. "And I guess by the time they had them all they realized that it just so happened to be the kids of the Avengers. So they grouped us together. Each one of them was trained for their parents skill. Archer did more spy, assassin type work. And archery, obviously. Alexei and Aria worked on more gun handling and strength training. They were also perfect for the brain experimentation thing. Aurora did strength training, but not as much as the others because she was smaller, so they emphasized assassin and spy training. She spent a lot of time getting experimented on because of her creepy metal power thing too. And Annie (Natasha quickly picked up on the nickname) was full on assassin and spy crap. She didn't need the strength training, instead they just kinda taught how to throw her weight around and shoot stuff. She had the most intense training out of all of us, even though she was only there for four years. We can all speak ten languages, she can do twelve. She's also probably the best out of all of us at karate, if there was anything past a black belt, she would be it." Atticus felt like he should add a little more about Anastasia, as Natasha was probably most interested in her. "She's also a great liar and a better actress. I tried to keep her and Aurora from making the kill shots when we went out on missions, but I wasn't with them all of the time. So anyway, eventually they wanted to get everyone better than their parents, and then send them out to kill you. Makes sense?"

"Yeah." She nodded, quickly trying to absorb all the information and understand that if they hadn't found those kids when they did, she probably would've been killed by her own daughter. "Did they always know who their parents were?"

"No, about two weeks before we left, an agent named Viktor, the only good one, gave me a file in secret with all of their information. I didn't tell them until right before they went with you guys. Viktor was probably the one that tipped Shield about everything in the first place. He was killed shortly after they found out."

"So where do you come into all of this?" It wasn't one of her original questions, but she was curious.

"Me? They just grabbed me right before they closed the gates on taking in normal kids. Since that IronMan guy didn't have a kid, I filled the gap."

"I thought you said normal kids didn't survive."

"I guess it was either luck, or someone up there really likes me." He joked. "Next question."

"What if they didn't want to go on a mission, or kill someone?"

"There was no such thing as not wanting to go. You don't wanna go?" He made the motion of a shot going into his arm. "Now you do."

"Brainwashing?" She asked.

"Obviously."

She was quiet for a minute, thinking about how much this sounded like the Red Room.

"So is that it?" Atticus interrupted her thoughts.

"Yeah you can go."

He got up and walked towards Anastasia's room.

When he walked in, she was lying on the bed, and it looked like she was asleep.

He went and sat down next to her.

"Hey."

She quickly opened her eyes from her fake sleep.

"Atticus!" She sat up and hugged him. They were the closest out of the whole group. He was like her older brother and she was his little sister.

"Hey Annie." He hugged back. "How's everything going here?"

"Great, I've already gathered enough information to send a full report back to Dr. Zotov. It's so easy, you just act like a little kid and you can sneak around without anyone noticing. And when we went shopping today to get groceries and clothes besides our uniforms, they were talking and I could hear them and they didn't even notice!"

Atticus frowned. "Annie, that's not what you're supposed to be doing."

"But, I've trained for this Atticus, it's our job."

"Not anymore Ana. We need to forget everything we learned there, ok?"

"It's so easy to get information here though, I just wished they'd given me a fake name, we'd never use our real ones." She frowned.

This was worse than Atticus thought it was. She had never been exposed to anything besides missions and had been through the most brain washing out of all of them, so of course she thought this was a mission. "Yeah, but we're using a real names because this isn't a mission, you shouldn't be acting."

"Dr. Zotov says I'm good at it though, the best in our category." She was confused.

"I know you're good at it, but you can't do that know. A family is supposed to trust each other, and they can't trust you if you aren't being you."

"Like you would know what a family's supposed to do." She spat.

"Anastasia," He warned.

"Well what am I supposed to do? I don't know how to act around these people."

"Just act like yourself, like you are around me and Archer, Aurora, Alexei, and Aria. You do it all the time."

"It's hard to be me around other people though, I'm used to having a character." She hugged the pillow on the bed and stared at Atticus. "I need a character."

He thought for a minute. "Here, I have a character. A little girl named Ana, and her personality is exactly like yours. Can you do that?"

She giggled. "That's just me though."

He smiled. "It's still a character."

"I guess so."

He looked at the clock, it was almost eight, it would be getting dark soon.

"I better get going."

"Okay." She said sadly.

"Hey, can your promise me one thing?"

"What?"

"Promise me the only character you'll play is Anastasia, no one else. Can you promise me that?"

"Promise."

* * *

**Aww haha. So there it is, hopefully that part where Atticus was answering Natasha's questions answered yours too! Those actually were some questions I had gotten! Now for the next chapter were going to have parent and kid interaction (or whatever's going on with Atticus) Since I have each one planned and just don't know what order to put them in, you can pick! I can fit two per chapter, so if you guys could pick two I'll do the top voted ones next chapter!**

**Ana and Natasha**

**Ana and Steve**

**Aurora and Jane**

**Aurora and Thor**

**Archer and Clint**

**Alexei and Bruce**

**Aria and Bruce**

**Let me know what ones you want next chapter! Thanks for reading! And don't forget to review, I love reading your input and a lot of the time I will use ideas and suggestions put in the reviews in the actual story. Even if you just have a small comment, don't be afraid to let me know!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Hey guys! Sorry for the wait, I've been really busy. I have a friend from Spain here and I have been busy with horse stuff to try out for equestrian team next year. Anyway, the updates mighty be a little slow for a while, but it'll get better soon, I promise! So there was a tie for the second part of this chapter, so I just added what was going on with Atticus instead,, but next chapter it will be better and hopefully longer! **

**Enjoy!**

**pls note that I don't own any character you recognize**

* * *

Clint pulled himself up into the air vent, making a lot of noise as he struggled to fit through the small space. He wasn't as small as Archer and Atticus.

Archer looked up and raised his eyebrows. 'Wow, he's persistent. Better not get himself stuck though, I'm not helping.' He thought. As soon as Clint had managed to get himself into the vent and looked up, Archer looked back down. He was going to start fiddling with the bow strings (as he always did when he was nervous) but couldn't because they were broken, so he just started trying to tie them together, even though he knew it wouldn't work.

Clint crawled over and sat across from him. Archer didn't look up and instead curled himself even closer to the opposite wall and looked down more, if that was possible. Clint had to hold back a sigh. This was how it had been for the past two days, except this time Archer couldn't run away.

Archer tried to tie the two ends of the string together (no way was he asking Clint for new ones) and silently cursed Atticus as they snapped apart again.

Clint cleared his throat, Archer didn't look up. He pulled the new package of strings out of his pocket and awkwardly tossed them towards the boy. Archer flinched as the package hitting the floor next to him made a noise. He gingerly picked up the package and slowly turned to Clint with a questioning look.

"Your friend said you needed those." Clint explained.

Archer nodded, finally seeing Atticus's horrible (at least in Archer's opinion) plan. "Thanks."

Archer pulled the string out of the package and pulled the old one off his bow. He glanced at Clint, who pretended to be intrigued by the ceiling, before continuing to fix the bow.

Clint watched him for a minute as he positioned the string, being very precise. Just as he was about to finish fixing it, the string slid off of the top of the weapon and flew off, hitting Archer in the hand. He muttered a string of curses in some foreign language and picked up the string to try again, still not looking at Clint.

After trying again and muttering some more curses, Clint guessed it was Russian this time, Archer glanced up at Clint.

For a second, Clint thought Archer was going to ask him for help, but he didn't.

They sat for a minute, Archer struggling with the bow and Clint watching, until finally he couldn't take it anymore.

"Want some help?" He asked.

Archer looked up and jerked his head slightly to the left, causing the bangs that fell over his eyes to move, so Clint could actually see his bewildered expression.

"You want to help, me?"

Clint nodded awkwardly and stuck out his hand. "Uhh yeah, I won't break it."

The boy subconsciously pulled the bow away from the man, before looking up again.

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Archer nodded and slowly handed the bow over. Clint quickly and easily placed the string correctly.

He looked over the bow, it was a simple composite bow, smaller than the average one, so it could fit Archer. He assumed it was custom made for him, as most children's bows have strings that are relatively easy to pull, but this one didn't. There were lots of scratches in the black paint, probably from dropping it, but some stood out. They were on the inside near the handle and looked like they had been carved out with a knife. There were twenty six of them in a row.

Clint wanted to ask about it, but decided not to. He didn't want to ruin the conversation they were almost having.

After a minute he handed the re-strung bow back to Archer.

"Thanks." The boy muttered and looked back down.

It was quiet for a while until Clint spoke up.

"Hey, uh, on the training floor there's an archery area. I could take you down their if you wanted?" Clint offered.

Archer didn't even look up. "You don't have to try to be friends with me, you know. I'm fine on my own."

"I'm not trying to be friends with you, kid." Clint snapped. "I'm trying to do what I'm supposed to do."

"And what exactly is that?"

"To be your dad. Now, I will probably be a real shitty parent, but you've got to give me a chance at least."

Archer stared at Clint in response.

"So, want to go practice, or not?"

Archer shrugged. "Sure."

* * *

Clint grabbed his bow off the rack and walked over to the corner of the room, Archer following close behind him.

He tapped the screen on the pedestal to select a setting. Tony had been "inspired" after seeing the second hunger games movie and had decided to redo Clint's training room to resemble the one Katniss had used in the Capitol. Even though it annoyed Clint when Tony teased him ("Now you actually are Katniss!") he enjoyed the system. He scrolled through settings on the tablet, picking how many people were training and which holographic images they were aiming at. It was already preset as humans, so when he clicked enter, outlines of people flicked to life in front of them.

Clint turned to Archer as the images appeared. Immediately Archer look changed from surprised to deadly. His grip tightened on the bow. Clint quickly turned back to the pedestal and changed the setting, pressing the closest option. The people changed to dogs that started running around in front of them.

Archer expression immediately changed back to normal before he shot Clint a look.

"Dogs?"

Clint turned back to the screen and scrolled through the options, the system was fairly new and Tony hadn't installed many options yet.

"That's all I have." He explained.

Archer looked at the screen.

"There's birds."

"Those are really hard, they're tiny." Clint explained.

"Try me." The boy challenged.

Clint pressed a button and the dogs changed to small birds, fluttering around the room, quickly jetting back and forth.

Clint aimed then drew his bow and hit one, the pixels fell to the ground and disappeared. He turned to Archer who was standing, not aiming, just watching. Clint saw his mouth moving, though the words were barely audible, it sounded like he was counting. A second later he pulled back his bow and shot, without wasting any time aiming (at least it looked like he didn't). Clint couldn't help but let his mouth drop open as the arrow shot through one bird, and then another one behind it, and another behind that, before neatly bouncing off the wall.

Archer turned around and smirked.

"I thought you said this was difficult."

'Just like his mom.' Clint thought, Bobbi had always wanted to be the best at everything. If she set her mind to do something, she would do it, and rub it in when she did.

Clint laughed and continued shooting. So did Archer. They continued for ten minutes until all the birds are gone, with Archer stopping occasionally and looking at Clint. He would open his mouth to say something, but would change his mind and continue practicing.

Finally, he spoke up.

"What was my mom like?" He blurted out. Archer bit his lip and looked down, like he was embarrassed.

Clint lowered his bow. "What?"

"My mom, mi madre, моя мать. I mean, you knew her, right? She wasn't just a prostitute or something."

"No, of course not." Clint said. "She was smart, funny, sarcastic, daring..." He trailed off, getting lost in his thoughts.

"So why did you leave her?" Archer asked.

"I didn't, she left me. Said it just wasn't working out, with us working for the same company and all. Then she moved to some middle eastern country and totally disappeared."

"And then went a had a kid that you didn't know about." Archer added.

"Yeah." Clint thought for a minute. "So if you were with her, how did you end up where you were?"

Archer looked down and took a deep breath. "They came to our house. Said they needed me, were going to pay a lot of money too. Of course she said no. So they... they got rid of her. That was six years ago, I've been in Russia with everyone else ever since then."

Clint was shocked. He hadn't heard from Bobbi in ten years, but he didn't think she was dead. If he would've just known about Archer he could've done something, gone and lived with them and help protect them. He shouldn't have let her go, he could've stopped her, but he didn't. The only woman he ever loved was dea-.

"Hello? Dude. Just forget I asked ok?" Archer interrupted his thoughts. "It's like twelve, maybe I should go to bed."

"Right." Clint cleared his throat.

* * *

They stepped out of the elevator and back into the apartment.

"So, uh, thanks I guess." Archer said.

Clint looked down at him. For the first time, he really looked at him.

Archer was slightly tall for his age. His hair was a very light brown and was very thick, like his mothers. All of the kids were pale, causing the freckles on Archers face to stand out. The most interesting part was his eyes. One was a bright green, and the other was a darker green with streaks of blue, giving it a almost dark cyan color. Atticus had said it was from an eye surgery, but he didn't say if the surgery was successful or not.

Finally Archer gave Clint a strange look and turned to walk down the hallway to his room. Clint hadn't realized he had been staring at him, still amazed that there was actually a real, living person that was half him.

As Clint watched him walk down the hall he came to a decision. Even if he thought he was going to be a shitty dad, he had to try. He owed it to Bobbi to take care of him.

* * *

Archer walked into his room and locked the door. He ran over to the bed and pulled out the blue duffle bag packed for when he was going to run away from underneath it. The boy unzipped it to start unpacking before closing it again.

'One good day doesn't mean you're staying, you know that.' He convinced himself as he tucked the bag underneath his bed. He would wait, but as soon as he messed something up and they realized he was just a burden, he would be ready to go. He didn't belong here.

* * *

Atticus ran down the alley.

"Shit, shit, shit." He swore and he knocked over a garbage can. He kept running as he heard the police sirens approaching behind him. The sirens got closer as he quickly climbed over a fence.

At the top of the fence his ankle got caught. He winced as he felt it twist backwards at an awkward and painful angle. A surge of pain shot through his leg as he heard a crack.

Finally his foot came loose and he kept running. The pain was excruciating, but he was used to it.

Suddenly a police car swerved towards him from in front, forcing him to run back towards the fence. He knew he couldn't climb it again, not with his ankle like this. The only option was to go with them, he could easily break out later.

Three officers jumped out of the car and pulled out their guns. Atticus put his hands behind his head in surrender.

* * *

Atticus waited in the room for three hours as officers came in and out. First to confiscate the things he had stolen (he figured he could make a living off of selling stolen stuff) and to take off his handcuffs. Then to take his weapons, which he had protested against, so the handcuffs went back on. Finally they asked him questions, and he answered everyone with a perfect lie, something even more believable than the real story. And after the three long hours were over, they took off the handcuffs again and loaded him into a car. The car stopped in front of a small, messy, falling apart apartment on the edge of the city.

"Where are we?" Atticus asked.

"This is your new home." The man driving said.

"What do you mean?"

"Welcome to the America Foster Care System, Jeremiah."

* * *

**Poor Atticus, stuck in a foster home! Haha anyway, next chapter I will be putting two stories in. Last time I asked it was a tie between these ones**

**Alexei and/or Aria and Bruce**

**Aurora and Thor**

**So the question now is, do you want it to be Alexei and Aria together, or separate? And if separate, which one do you want to see in the next chapter? Let me know! Like I've said before I love hearing your opinions. I don't really have this story even plotted out of anything, so if you have an idea let me know because I can probably put it in this story! Thanks for everything guys!**


	9. Chapter 9

**(Reposting this there were issues with it showing up last time, sorry if you got two emails) Hey guys! Thanks so much for the great response! I'm going to reply to a few things because, ya now, I can XD**

**reader (guest)- thanks for your review! I'm just going to explain a little. Everyone knew about Anastasia, but her parents have her up because they thought she would be safer. While Thor didn't know about Aurora, Jane did and would've told him eventually, if the Facility hadn't interfered. Same for Archer, Clint would've eventually found out. And I'm guessing Bruce would've ended up with the twins if the Facility hadn't offered to take them. So basically all of the Avengers would've known eventually, if there hadn't been someone trying to take all the kids. But thanks for your review, I appreciate the opinion!**

**dknight27- I just want to say thanks because you've reviewed on almost every chapter, and you have really good advice! Thanks so much!**

**I also wanna say thanks to my beta Kiefercarlos for helping me with this story!**

* * *

Alexei was hungry. It was four in the morning and he was starving. They were used to not eating a lot, but ever since he had gotten to New York and realized that they basically have unlimited food, he was always ready to eat.

'Besides, you need to gain weight anyway; you're in the lowest percentile of weight for a nine year old.' Alexei silently reasoned with himself as he walked into the dark kitchen.

The first cupboard was opened to reveal pots and pans, he shut that cupboard. Second and third drawers had utensils; he probably didn't need any of those.

"Does this guy have any food?" He whispered angrily as he closed another door. The past few days they had been living off of cereal and very bland sandwiches that had been set out for them before Bruce would run away to his lab (which was usually before they woke up, and they woke up at five). But today Alexei wanted real food. You know the American food he had always heard of, but never had; Pizza, Ice Cream, Cookies, there was an infinite number of foods out there just waiting to be eaten. And this man had-

"Damn Raisin Bran." The boy closed another cupboard that was stacked with boxes of cereal, just Raisin Bran. "This is ridiculous. A whole kitchen and all that's here is Raisin Bran." Alexei slammed the cupboard shut and looked up.

There were more cupboards, but he would have to climb up onto the counter to reach them. He wasn't as coordinated or as quiet as Anastasia, but it couldn't be that difficult. Besides, what if all the good food was up there?

He climbed onto the counter. Everything was fine, until he lost his footing by stepping on a washcloth. He reached to his left and waved around trying to find something to steady himself with. It would've be fine after that too, if his hand hadn't landed on a stack of plates. Then if that stack of plates hadn't fallen over, taking Alexei with them.

There was the sound of plates crashing and Alexei cursing in Russian.

It was obviously loud, and a few seconds later Aria came running in.

"What did you do?" She screeched.

"Nothing, it just fell over."

"Fell over? Oh my god Alex, he's going to kill you, literally." She heard a noise from the end of the hallway. "Like, start running, now. If you don't I will."

Alexei stood up and looked at the mess. Surprisingly nothing had broken; maybe a few plates were chipped, but nothing major. Alexei had broken the fall for them.

"We're fine. Stop freaking out. He won't come out here anyway. If he did that would mean he'd have to speak with us, and I don't think anyone wants that."

"Wants what?"

Both kids jumped and turned around. Aria reached for a knife. Bruce stood in the entrance to the kitchen, staring between the plates on the ground and the kids.

"Nothing of any importance to you. But do you have any food?" Alexei asked.

"Walking around my house in the middle of the night throwing plates on the ground? I'm pretty sure that's of at least some importance to me." Bruce replied (kind of) calmly.

"We'll clean up the-" Aria was cut off by Alexei, who had now turned and was staring at Bruce, never even blinking.

"I was not "throwing plates" I was trying to get something to eat besides the damn Raisin Bran and sandwiches."

"If you wanted something else, you should've asked."

"Oh I'm sorry; I didn't know we were doing the conversation thing now." Alexei remarked.

Aria stood near the side of the kitchen, looking between the two. This was bad, Alexei was making Bruce angry, and himself.

They stood for a few seconds, just glaring at each other. Aria was waiting for something terrible to happen when Alexei calmly reached across to his other hand and felt his pulse, still maintaining eye contact with Bruce.

"I'm going to suggest we stop this now." Alexei said.

He quickly realized what Alexei meant. The day before the kids had explained that they were taught to completely control the "other guy" and only had a tiny bit of trouble with it when they were tired or sick and angry.

"Yeah."

The two kids quickly reached down and picked up the plates, then set the back on the counter like they were before.

"So, what do you want to eat?" Bruce asked.

Alexei took a deep breath. "Well, since all of your food is basically-"

"Pancakes." Aria cut him off. She knew Alexei had a problem with talking too much, and not realizing what he was saying really. Plus she had seen a billboard with pancakes on it out of the window when they were waiting at Shield. Ever since then she had wanted to try them.

Alexei was about to speak up when Aria glared at him.

"Yeah, we'll have pancakes." He said.

"I don't have any pancake mix." Bruce said.

"Well I'm not moving from this spot until I get pancakes. I can stand here for a week if I have too." Alexei crossed his arms.

"Fine, fine. We'll go get pancakes."

* * *

Bruce Banner never thought he'd be sitting in an IHOP at four am with two kids still in their pajamas. But then again, he never thought he would have had two kids anyway.

"So what's the deal with you anyway?" Alexei asked between bites of his third pancake.

"What do you mean?"

"Like are you always subconsciously angry at everyone or is this just an I don't want to deal with annoying little kids type of thing? I can't really tell, you kind of just make some weird facial expression at us every time we speak." He shoved another huge piece of pancake in his mouth and looked up at Bruce.

"See! There's that face again." Aria said.

Bruce started to protest.

"And again!" Alexei laughed before turning completely serious again. "But seriously, are you always an antisocial, secluded hermit? Because that won't work for us."

"We're social. In twelve different languages." Aria added.

"I'm not antisocial, okay? I just work a lot." Bruce defended himself.

"That won't work for us. We need to be monitored constantly. You'll need to get joint custody with our mother." Alexei said. "Madeline McConner, right? Well I know its right, I've seen my file. I'm just asking to be polite. You don't really seem like the type for multiple relationships at the same time. Besides, I honestly don't know how you managed to have intercourse with your-"

Bruce nearly spit his coffee all over the table.

"Can we not talk about this in IHOP? How old are you anyway, you shouldn't even know about that."

"IHOP is a friendly environment with delicious pancakes." Alexei argued.

"And we're eight." Aria added. "But our brains have a higher capacity from experimentation allowing us to be more mature than what is expected." She finished the crossword in the kids menu and looked back at her brother. "You may continue, Alex."

"Anyway, you'll have to speak with her to solve custody issues. I doubt she will want anything to do with us, but as a legal matter you must contact her."

Bruce nodded. It was weird, these kids were like little business men. And they had no problem with casually discussing very personal things in public.

"Let's play I-Spy." Aria said.

"Yeah." Alexei nodded enthusiastically and looked at Bruce. "You go first."

"Uhhhh." He said. Just a minute ago these kids were talking about their maturity and now they wanted to play I-Spy?

"We're waiting." Aria said.

"I see something... green."

"Nope, say it right." Alexei commanded.

"What?"

"Say. It. Right."

Bruce sighed. "I spy with my little eye something green."

"Plant?" Aria guessed.

"No."

"Plate?" Alexei said.

"Nope."

It went on like that for a few minutes until the kids gave up.

"It's the car over there." He pointed out the window.

"But that's chartreuse! You said it was green." Aria rolled her eyes.

"It's basically green."

"Who cares?" Alexei said. "My turn. I Spy with my little eye something teal."

They stayed at the IHOP for an hour. Bruce thought the kids extremely specific color choices were hilarious. Finally they decided it was time to head back to the tower.

As soon as they got back the twins left to walk back to their rooms.

At the last second Alexei turned around.

"You can go back to your lab now."

"You passed the test." Aria explained. "Barely, but you passed. It would've been better if you could properly identify chartreuse."

"It's basically green." Bruce argued.

"Whatever. Anyway, we're going back to bed. See ya later."

* * *

Aurora stared at the hammer that sat on the chair across from her. Every day she had watched Thor walk into the room, set it in the chair, and leave it there. Everyone walked through the "Avengers Meeting Room" (which was just a floor with a kitchen, a bunch of couches, and a TV) at least once a day, but no one ever touched it.

Today that was going to change.

Aurora got up from the couch and walked over to the hammer. She grabbed the handle and tried to pull it up. It wouldn't move. She tried again. Still nothing.

Finally she backed away a few feet and held out her hand. The hammer flew into it. She smiled, but it only lasted a second because as soon as she had stopped using her powers and had just been holding it, the weight pulled her to the ground.

She got up and stared at it. So the hammer was too heavy for her to hold, but if she used her metal controlling powers she could move it around, as long as she didn't try to hold it normally. Cool.

She played around with it for a few minutes, flying it around the room and then back near her, trying not to hit anything. She wasn't very good at controlling it, but it was a fun game.

Suddenly the weapon changed directions and flew over Aurora's head. She turned around and saw Thor standing in the doorway.

"I see you have discovered Mjölnir."

"The hammer thing? It's cool."

"Yes it is. Made from the finest Asgardian metals, only few people can control it." He walked to the couch and pointed the hammer in her direction. "That includes you, Princess Aurora."

She smiled. He had been calling her that ever since she had gotten here, she didn't understand until he explained that he was royalty on Asgard and her being his daughter made her a princess. He told her that once there was another opportunity, they would visit Asgard.

"I can't pick it up, it's too heavy. But I can make it fly around." She explained.

He nodded and threw the hammer across the room. It was about break through the window when Aurora jumped up and held out her hand. The hammer immediately flew back towards her, a little too quickly for her liking. She ducked down and it flew over her head back to Thor.

"You're crazy." She said.

"You would make a very good warrior on Asgard with a little practice." He said thoughtfully.

She laughed and held out her hand again. Mjölnir flew out of Thor's hand and towards her. She stopped it at the last second and held it in midair.

Thor smiled. She was very smart and brave for her age, Asgard would love her.

He pulled the hammer back and flew it again. Aurora stopped it before hitting something that was probably expensive and sent it back towards him.

They did this for a few minutes, though sometimes Aurora wouldn't stop it in time and something would break. At first she thought she was going to get in big trouble like she did at the Facility, but Thor didn't care. He just pulled it back to him and then sent the hammer flying again.

By the end there were three broken lamps, one broken window, and a dent in the refrigerator.

Thor was just getting ready to throw it again when he heard a screech from the other half of the floor (which was meeting rooms).

"THOR!" Pepper yelled. They could hear her heels clicking as she angrily walked towards them, but they couldn't see her yet.

Aurora looked up at Thor with a terrified expression.

"Run." Was all the demigod said before they both took off for the elevator.

* * *

**So, what do you think? Next chapter will be stuff with Anastasia and a check in with Atticus! After that this story can go two ways. One- It could be more mellow, still have some actions stuff, but be more about the kids adjusting. Then the sequel to this would be a really high action, intense thing. Or two- The intense plot could take place in this story, and the sequel would be more about them adjusting, school, etc.**

**Tell me which one you would like to see! **

**Thanks so much for all the support, I really appreciate it!**


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